“His biggest weakness is, ‘Tim who?’” says Allan Lichtman, a presidential historian at American University in Washington, DC.
Apart from low name recognition, Pawlenty lacks a deep fundraising network and, perhaps worst of all in the nominating contest, comes across as bland and uninspiring, says Professor Lichtman.
“He’s a cookie-cutter Republican,” he says. “If you were to go out and stamp out your basic Republican candidate, you’d have plain vanilla Pawlenty.